Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Say this really fast - Sunrise, Sunset

Downtown Barrow

You can feel the changing of the seasons here, but it's a subtle thing - the air feels heavier, the days are a little shorter. That's nothing compared to Barrow, Alaska, where the season change is marked by the end of the midnight sun.According to the AP:

The sun set at 2:04 a.m. Wednesday for the first time since May 10, almost three months ago, according to Royce Fontenot of the National Weather Service station in Barrow. But it was a short night, he said. The sun edged back over the horizon just an hour later. Days will get shorter and nights longer until mid-November, when the sun will set until January and Barrow will begin three months of darkness.

Tina Wolgemuth said she expects it will soon be easier to get her daughters to go to bed, once it starts getting dark again at night. “Now they ask ’Why is it bedtime when the sun is still shining?’ Also, it will be time to take down the aluminum foil from our windows,” she said.

Teri Andreasen said it’s nice to have the darkness back. “It’s sort of like welcoming old friends back into town after a long absence,” she said. “After so much light, I almost forget that we have a moon and stars and northern lights. I guess that’s what the first sunset does. It is sort of a preview of coming attractions.”